They were shouting and they were pointing their rifles at my chest. A little “cut rope” action appeared on my HUD. I did this partly out of temptation, partly just to make sure the game functioned the way I remembered. I looked at the rope, and the yellow bags of gear attached. When the helicopter lowered its rope, the Italians attached their gear without hesitation and stood back. Normally, a few NPC baddies show up to fight when a chopper is en route. One of them fired a flare into the sky, and the helicopter was on its way. They began to speak to each other more and more, and I got that paranoid feeling of an English-speaker that they were talking about me.
The Italians had yet to call the chopper. At that point, it’s possible another player could steal all your good stuff by cutting the rope. You have to wait around for this helicopter to arrive, and when it does, you need to attach your loot to a rope. Otherwise, it can’t be taken into the larger game world. This is an area where you call in a chopper to airlift your precious “contaminated” loot to safety (just like the previous game). They tackled the enemy strongholds and looted buildings along the way. After that, I followed them through the town, because I’m a creep and I like to see what players do when given a post-apocalyptic murderscape to go wild within. When the bullet casings stopped clinking, the Italians spoke to each other, but they didn’t shoot me. I joined in the fray, and by the time the Italians noticed me flinging grenades and helping out, they must have decided I was okay. A pair of goodies, emptying magazines into the baddies. When I first met the Italians, they were shooting goons. It’s that tension, I mean, the possibility of a “good” player suddenly switching sides, that drives the paranoia and suspense of this eerie multiplayer deathtown. Because the rogues themselves are less important than the fact that they exist. In fact, there seems to be fewer players in general (a friend reasons that the Dark Zones are smaller, so the player count might have dropped, but I can’t tell for certain). Like the last Division, I’ve seen very few players go rogue. Being a rogue is basically a cat and mouse game, except you don’t know which animal you are until the traps start snapping.
This whole time though, any lawful player might be hunting you down. It’s essentially a money-laundering bolthole. A hideout where you get to wash off your rogue status and go back to being a normal scavenger like anyone else. After enough hacking or other despicable behaviour, your map pings the location of a “Thieves Den”. If confrontation is too much, you can be a sneakier, quieter rogue, just by hacking terminals and picking locks to forbidden chests. You want to outlast a countdown timer and keep the loot for yourself. If the law-abiding players of the Dark Zone kill you in revenge, they’ll be rewarded with loot. If you do shoot at another player you will become “rogue” and that means you’re fair game for all other players. But it is still that grim place of silence and tension, of wary run-ins, of wondering whether the man in the cowboy hat called “DeathPal99” is going to ignore you, or start a fight. Some of the particulars of exchanging bullets with nasty human foes have changed (our guide to the Dark Zone can explain all that). There are now three of these dangerous zones, where players can shoot each other as well as the NPC baddies guarding high-tier loot. The Dark Zone has changed a bit since I last espoused my love for it in The Division of yesteryear. And sometimes they point their assault rifles at your heart and shout at you in a romance language. Sometimes they sprint away the moment they see you, like a startled deer. Sometimes they hide in the apartments, like scavenging rodents.
This is the part of Washington DC where other players skulk in the alleyways. Yes it has a few niggles (the crap story, the bugs) but the Dark Zone is one of its returning treats. The Division 2 is a solid shoot ‘n’ loot, as I said in our review. I don’t understand what they’re yelling, but it’s clear from the rifles pointed at my torso that this is not a friendly chat.
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